W. C. T. U. Achievements 


in Burma 


FLORA E. STROUT 
World’s W. C. T. U. Representative 


(Address delivered before the National W. C. T. U. Con- 
vention of 1917) 

When I think of Burma I always think 
of color, vivid and alluring, of brightness 
and laughter, for the people, especially the 
Burmans, are light hearted and merry, not 
particularly energetic, but always charm- 
ingly picturesque in their gay skirts, velvet 
slippers, bright turbans and scarfs. I could 
dwell for hours on the beauty of the flowers, 
the green of the paddy fields, the charm of 
the cocoanut palm on the banks of that great 
waterway, the Irrawaddy river, but I want 
to speak about the W. C. T. U. in Burma and 
what it has done for that country. 


One cannot overestimate the opportuni- 
ties there are for our work in a country 
like Burma. Everything is wide open to us 
and we only need to enter into our posses- 
sions. There are 12,000,000 people in this 
delightful country, speaking 175 different 
languages and dialects. The Burmans, who 
are 8,000,000 in number, are the people who 
have the greatest influence, as they were 
the ruling race when England conquered the 
country. They are Buddhists and therefore 
should be total abstainers, as Buddhism 
strictly forbids the use of alcohol to its fol- 
lowers, but I regret to say that their con- 
tact with the west has done much to break 
down these restraints and they are culti- 
vating the drink habit to an alarming de- 
gree. The hill tribes of various names and 
tongues, with the exception of many of the 


Karens, who are largely Christian, are apt 
to be both drunken and immoral. 

Besides. the drink habit, numbers of the 
people are addicted to one drug habit or 
another, although the importation of all 
drugs, with the exception of opium, is for- 
bidden by the government. Cigarets are 
used everywhere, even by the very young 
of both sexes, thus seriously affecting their 
growth and strength as well as their prog- 
ress in school. The betel habit, which is 
both offensive and injurious, is very preva- 
lent. We believe it is because of these habits, 
especially the alcohol and drug habits, that 
Burma has a most unenviable record as re- 
gards crime—it leads all of the provinces of 
India in this respect. 

On my arrival it seemed necessary to in- 
augurate an educational campaign. This was 
accordingly done with the hearty approval 
and co-operation of the director of public 
instruction, who not only opened the schools 
to our scientific temperance addresses but, 
with the consent of headmasters and princi- 
pals, permitted the distribution of literature 
and pledge cards, which he had previously 
examined and endorsed. We started organ- 
ization work and with the help of the mis- 
sionaries, who are always. our staunch 
friends, we soon had the young people and 
children working in our Y. P. B’s and L. 
T. L’s. At first there seemed to be a failure 
on the part of the young people to appreci- 
ate the seriousness of the pledge. We there- 
fore selected a few of the most intelligent 
and faithful students, organized them into 
one of our Branches and allowed them to 
bring in their schoolmates. This worked so 
well that in Moulmein, where we began with 
thirty members, the number has increased 
to as many as five hundred. 

_ We had no money, no complete organiza- 


2 


tion, no literature, no headquarters with 
which to begin, but our work grew in favor 
and, counting the children, we now have a 
membership of 3,000. We also have thou- 
sands of leaflets, a fine headquarters (thanks 
to our Methodist friends), two full-time paid 
workers and from the first the general work 
has been practically self-supporting, al- 
though the World’s W. C. T. U. and friends 
at home have helped to finance special work. 
We also have an especially fine equipment _ 
for our scientific temperance work in the 
schools. 


Our young people are for the most part 
thoroughly alive and do organizing on their 
own account, distribute temperance litera- 
ture in their jungle homes, and it is most 
inspiring to see them conduct their own 
meetings and take part in medal contests, 
debates and discussions. The playlet, “The 
Trial of Prince Nicotine,’ which has been 
translated into their language, is proving a 
great favorite in the Karen schools. The 
schools of Burma are- beginning to teach 
scientific temperance. A text-book on hy- 
giene which has been introduced recently 
contains considerable physiology and some 
temperance teaching, but the important fact 
is that the school authorities demand that 
lectures and examinations shall be given on 
the subject and our services were very much 
in demand by schools of all sorts. In most 
of the schools there are signs forbidding the 
use of tobacco and betel upon school prem- 
ises and where once dozens could have been 
seen using both, now it is only occasionally 
that students violate this regulation. All 
this has been in a very real way the out- 
come of our work which has been cordially 
supported by the educational authorities. 

We have made our mothers’. meetings a 
prominent feature and they are the most 


3 


popular line of our work. The mortality 
among children in Burma is enormous and 
early in its career our organization realized 
that instruction to the women on the care 
of children was vitally necessary. We there- 
fore started a number of unions where every- 
thing pertaining to the welfare of the home 
and child is discussed and the result has 
been most encouraging. 

The legal phase of the work was a little 
difficult, but every petition to the govern- 
ment was given a most courteous reception 
and no one could have received more con- 
siderate treatment anywhere than your rep- 
resentative received from the English offi- 
cials. In numbers of instances our requests. 
have been granted. At our request several 
applicants were refused licenses. Twice we 
were allowed to paste temperance posters 
all over Rangoon and other towns and even 
the street car company allowed us free ad- 
vertising for six months in a certain number 
of cars. The liquor traffic is still licensed in 
Burma, but there is a growing sentiment 
that prohibition ought to be tried in certain 
sections of the country, and it will need only 
one such trial, we believe, to bring death to 
alcohol all over the province. 

We prepared programs to be used in the 
various churches and on World’s Temper- 
ance Sunday asked that temperance sermons 
be preached, pledges presented for signa- 
tures and collections taken for our work. 
The response was most generous. 

I wish there were time to speak of our 
fine workers, Mrs. Phinney, the former pres- 
ident; Mrs. Singiser, the present president; 
Miss May Mack, the superintendent of the 
Y. P. B.; Mrs. Stevens, superintendent of 
the L. T. L. To their work in a very large 
degree is due the success of the W. C. 'T. U. 
in Burma. Miss Mack, who is supported by 


4 


the World’s W. C. T. U., has proved herself 
invaluable and is making good in all she un- 
dertakes. We ought not to forget the 
Life Line, our fine paper which survived the 
death of the first organization and is one of 
the best of all temperance publications, we 
think. 

I must not forget to speak of a branch of 
our work which is always of tremendous 
importance in the Orient—our purity work. 
Rangoon, like most port cities, was, and still 
is, filled with unspeakable wickedness. The 
government thought that by segregating 
vice in a portion of the town the question 
could be best handled. This permissive area 
was in the center of the city near the 
churches and school; indeed, both were ac- 
tually within the very bounds. We called 
upon leading English people to help in this, 
our first efforts along purity lines, and the 
response was most gratifying. The Ran- 
goon Vigilance Society was thus formed, the 
Bishop of Rangoon becoming president and 
your representative the secretary. The in- 
itiative of the W. C. T. U. in this matter was 
recognized and its purity superintendents 
were made permanent members of the com- 
mittee. Their work is done through the 
society and reported to the W. C. T. U. 

Under the leadership of Mr. John Cowen, 
we began a tremendous campaign, holding 
prayer meetings in the streets at night, 
bringing facts before the government and 
the public, and trying to get in touch with 
any poor creatures who might want to leave 
their lives of shame. Soon it was apparent 
that a refuge would be needed. A house was 
given to us rent free. It was furnished free 
of charge by one of the shops, the city re- 
moved the taxes, the electric light company 
put in the fixtures free of charge, the food 
supplies were furnished gratis and the ma- 


5 


tron gave her services for a month. We had 
some very pathetic cases—one a girl dressed 
like a Burman, who proved to be a Hindoo 
wife stolen from her husband and sold to 
the keeper of a disorderly house. She was 
a dear, grateful, pure-hearted girl, but when 
her case was brought to court, through some 
mix-up which I cannot go into, it was lost. 
Flaming with indignation, I went to the 
police officials most. concerned and said, “If 
she had been a horse we would have won 
the case.” “Oh, yes, of course,” he replied, 
“a horse is of more value in the East than a 
woman.” Nothing burns itself more into 
the heart of a worker in the Orient than the 
truth of that statement—a horse is of more 
value there than a woman. 

Now, what has been accomplished? At 
our petition, segregation has been abolished. 
Measures have been passed against the ad- 
vertising and soliciting of vice; 114 houses 
have been closed; forty-five girls have been 
rescued; a woman’s dispensary has been 
opened; purity lectures have been given; 
literature on the subject distributed, and a 
censorship over the moving picture shows 
has been established. This sounds like a 
good deal, and so it is, but we must remem- 
ber that in a city like Rangoon there is 
much laxness of law enforcement and the 
evil. is so awful and so widespread that 
we fee] that we have scarcely touched its 
fringes. However, a wholesome public sen- 
timent has begun to grow and we hope in 
the near future to get some important legis- 
lation which will make public prostitution a 
crime for both sexes. 

When we think of what has been done in 
a field acknowledged as our most difficult 
one, the question naturally arises, how? Let 
me answer-—-through prayer. From the be- 
_ginning we emphasized prayer and the name 


6 


of Christ. At our last prayer meeting be- 
fore I sailed, when at our call forty or fifty 
busy missionaries gathered together, one of 
them said, “This is the secret of the success 
of the W. C. T. U. in Burma: ‘Not by might 
nor by power but by my spirit, saith the 
Lord of Hosts.’” In connection with this 
thought, let me say that we give great prom- 
inence to our evangelistic work, holding re- 
ligious meetings wherever we can—it is so 
important to bring the Lord Jesus to these 
poor people of heathen lands. 


We need to get a larger vision of what our 
work means in the mission fields, to the 
women, the men and the children. It is the 
missionary who sends for us; we are fight- 
ing the evils which most hinder his work. 
A Buddhist will tell you his religion is 
superior to ours because his is strictly non- 
alcoholic. “I cannot be a Christian,” said a 
Mohammedan student to his professor in a 
college in Burma, “I cannot learn to drink 
wine.” Isn’t it shameful that our people 
have been responsible for this impression 
which the non-Christian most undoubtedly 
has of our religion? No wonder these peo- 
ple think the Christian religion an alcohol 
religion! No wonder they think the West 
wholly corrupt! The West is responsible 
for much of the evil in the Hast. Said a 
Buddhist priest to my interpreter after I 
had finished speaking on temperance and 
purity, “I am very glad that some one from 
the West can talk like that. Western peo- 
ple come here and live such lives and do 
such things that we do not know what to 
think of them or their religion.” 

We need to get a vision of tempted, strug- 
gling humanity to realize that in our reac- 
tion, the one upon another, there is no Hast, 
no West, but we are all one. If we do not 


ve 


purify and help to elevate the degraded 
parts of the earth, they will drag us down. 

God wants this work done and we, His 
children, are the ones to do it. It is a 
shame to begin the work on a field as we 
did in Burma and allow it to die. Who will 
support it? you ask. America will, I believe, 
in a very large way have to stand behind it. 
There is money enough; I have never seen 
such awful extravagance in all my life. There 
is enough spent every day on foolish things 
to support our work for years, yet while 
the world is swarming with idle women who 
spend millions on their clothes and on their 
pleasure, we are crippled for money and 
crippled for helpers. This wonderful oppor- 
tunity for service is in a very real way 
America’s opportunity. What are we going 
to do with it? 


Price of this leaflet, 2 cents each; per 50, 40 cents; 
per 100, 75 cents 


National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union 
Evanston, illinois 


IS 463 


